The Trials
by ShowJumping Girl
Summary: Arden has to work hard to stay at Barastoc Equestrian Academy and even harder if she wants to get to the top, but staying at the top is also a challenge and with someone watching her every move, she has to be careful who she trusts...


Arden Miller looked excitedly out the window of the black Lexus, breathing in the smell of pine trees and country. She rolled the window down and stuck her head out, feeling the wind in her hair as David, the Bastarin Equestrian Academy's driver, hummed to the rock and roll music that he was playing in the front. Small rocks from the road flicked up, hitting the bottom of the vehicle. Horses were grazing in the paddocks with luscious green grass and birds that sang merrily in the trees. One paddock particularly caught Arden's attention. There, in the middle, stood a pretty appaloosa mare whose head was held high up in the air, her ears flat back. Arden wondered what this mare could be unhappy about when a chestnut foal who looked to be only a few months old, appeared from behind her. He whinnied cheerfully and started trotting circles around his mother. The circles grew bigger and his stride quickened and soon he was cantering around the paddock. He whinnied again as if to say 'Mum! Look at me." Arden laughed at the spirited foal but the mare and the foal in the paddock blurred past her as the car sped up.

"Is everything alright back there, Miss Miller?" David called.

"I'm fine. Just looking at the horses," she assured him, turning her neck around to get one last look at the foal and mare.

The fields and pine trees suddenly disappeared and they were replaced with rows of large, expensive looking houses. Most of which had newly painted white fences and freshly mowed lawns.

Minutes passed while Arden continued to look out the window, counting how many cars passed or how many dogs ran by, just to keep herself busy.

"Welcome to Bastarin Academy, where riders work to the best of their ability," David suddenly announced. The car slowed down and turned into a wide driveway with fields on both sides.

Butterflies suddenly rushed into Arden's stomach and she took in her surroundings.

Four months ago, she had applied for Bastarin Academy's first auditions, not even imagining herself actually being selected as one of the fifty people to go through to the semi-finals. She and her palomino, Honey, had aced the cross country course with a speedy time, gone clear through the show jumping phase and mastered the dressage test. But so had many other girls and boys. When she had gotten a letter in the mail to tell her that she was moving on to the next stage, she had almost feinted! It took her a while for the information to actually sink in and when it did, she couldn't think of anything else until it was time to travel to Forest Hills show ground for the semi-finals.

Getting another brilliant score that day, she moved onto the finals. That was where her riding was really tested. Arden and her competitive rival, Tessa Kingsley, had both gone well in the dressage and show jumping, but when it was time to do cross country, Honey suddenly went crazy. She took the fences at a gallop and stumbled many times, but surprisingly stayed up but kept on rushing at the fences like she only had a few minutes left to live. It was a hard course for both horse and rider. Her striding was wrong through the whole course, but she miraculously went clear over all jumps and with a pretty quick time. Before she knew it, Arden was packed and ready for Bastarin Academy. This exclusive equestrian boarding school was _the _place to go if you wanted to become a professional horse rider. They had the best riding instructors and coaches in all of Australia. The uniform consisted of cream jodhpurs, a bright yellow polo t-shirt with the Bastarin Academy crest and short black boots. It had taken her a while to persuade her mother to let her go to the boarding school but finally, Arden won the argument and now here she was, all by herself without her parents telling her to be careful or warn her about being trampled by horses.

"Whose horses are they in the fields?" Arden gestured to the large paddocks around her filled with horses of all different colours and sizes.

"Oh these ones? They belong to the students, Miss Miller," David told her.

Unfortunately, when Arden left to go to Bastarin, she hadn't been able to take her precious Honey with her. Since she was living, or _had _been living, in New Zealand, it was far too much money to send Honey with her, but she was assured by the principle of the academy that the school horses were of the highest training.

"Right then, I will get your suitcases out of the trunk and then I'll be off," David smiled at her.

Arden opened the door and stepped out only to be greeted by the principle herself, Mrs Fairlight. She was a very thin but short woman with blonde hair that was tied back in a tight braid. She looked down at Arden, smiling.

"You must be Arden Miller, from New Zealand. Welcome to Bastarin Equestrian Academy. I'm Mrs Fairlight," she put her hand forward and Arden shook it.

"Nice to meet you, Mrs Fairlight," she said politely.

David dropped the suitcases by her side, wished her luck and then he was gone.

"Oh dear, I would love to show you around the school myself but I'm afraid that I have to be somewhere. Maybe…" Mrs Fairlight was cut off by a girl with long, straight, streaky blonde hair that floated around her shoulders and bright blue eyes.

"I could show her around for you, Mrs Fairlight," the girl suggested, looking at the principle innocently. This caught her off guard and she jumped back.

"Caroline! Well… I _suppose. _Caroline Forsyth, meet Arden Miller," Mrs Fairlight left Arden with the girl, Caroline, reluctantly after promising that she would check in on her once she was settled.

"Hi! You're the girl from New Zealand, right? The one with the palomino?" Caroline asked Arden.

"Yeah," she replied, wondering how Caroline knew.

"Word travels fast at Bastarin," Caroline laughed, seeing Arden's puzzled expression.

"So, where to first?"

"The stables of course!"

Caroline led the way past a group of boys who were passing a rugby ball between each other and a whole bunch of older girls who were greeting each other with hugs and stories of what they did in the holidays.

"Do you know which stable block your horse is in?" she asked Arden as they continued to walk up a windy path.

Arden shook her head sadly, her dark brown hair falling over her face. "I had to leave Honey in New Zealand, with the price to fly her over and all," she explained. She remembered her last farewell to Honey, the tears that had streamed down her cheeks. Honey had seemed to know what was going on because as Arden had given the beautiful palomino a kiss on the nose and then walked away, Honey whinnied and tried to follow her. Arden's mum had promised to take good care of her, though and Arden wasn't doubtful. It wasn't like her mum knew nothing about horses, it was actually quite the opposite. She competed when she was younger on a bay gelding called Sumpreme, but he had unfortunately had a bad fall one dayon the track and broken his leg, having to be put down. Miss Miller hadn't really had that passion for horses ever since.

"Hey, no problem. I mean, some of the girls at this school like Beau Stripple and Summer Mascliff might have a problem with that, but I don't," Caroline reassured her. "I'm sure they assigned you to a great horse."

"I hope so," Arden muttered.

"So what's your major? You know, in riding terms," Caroline asked.

"Eventing," Arden replied. She had wanted to be an eventer ever since the day she had watched her mum win the Auckland Championships when Arden was four. Now she was twelve and determined on being an eventer, just like her mother. She had surprised herself on how little it had discouraged her when her Supreme died and her mum fell off. Sure, she was upset, but when she was offered a try on the cross country course, she immediately said yes.

"Oh my god! Me too! Although, I used to have my heart set on show jumping as my future career. I almost went back to it when I heard that Mischa Fersort was going to be teaching the Junior Cross Country class."

Mischa Fersort, the head of the riding department, was definitely the harshest instructor that Bastarin had, but also the riders that survived her class were sure to be champion riders if they chose to be.


End file.
